He grinned fleetingly again to soften the sarcasm and stepped out into the glare of the sun washing over the bridge deck. I watched him go, then reached for the tin with the bearded Jack Tar on the label. Of course he was right. It was sheer fantasy even to imagine for one moment that three ships like ours could vanish without trace, leaving no evidence, no indication of the way of their passing. I mean — two ultra-modern cargo vessels and a warship, all with wireless equipment capable of blasting the ears off the operators at Simonstown Naval Base who would be listening specifically for us? I must have been bloody crazy even to consider it.
I lit up and felt a bit better.
At least, I tried to convince myself I did.
CHAPTER TWO
We were forced to alter course still further to the west just as I was starting my soup course at dinner that evening.
Charlie Shell, the Second Mate, was prodding doubtfully at his curried rice while bitterly bemoaning the trials and tribulations of being the only bloke on the ship who had to do a proper day’s work on account of his standing the graveyard watch seven nights a week — which struck me as being a bit of an Irishism for a start — when I noticed the stand-by quartermaster hanging nervously around the saloon doorway trying to catch Ling’s Oriental eye. The little steward finally consented to observe him and, after a bit of dramatic pidgin, came scuttling over. ‘Number Four Mate, he say Mister Kent go up along blidge, chop-chop.’
I tried to console myself with the thought that the night was too hot and humid for soup anyway, and chop-chopped up to the bridge wondering what it was all about. As I hurried along the prom deck I didn’t note any feverish activity over on Mallard or the looming Athenian, so I assumed we couldn’t be under attack. As I swung up the ladder and into the wheelhouse I saw Brannigan deep in conversation with the elderly Mister Foley, our Chief Wireless Operator. He waved a signal form at me as I approached and I followed him out to the starboard wing.
‘Just picked up a triple-S call, Mate,’ Foley said, pushing his lined face forward to catch the stream of cool air flowing over the furled dodgers. It was a hot, airless little hole they had for a wireless room, perched as it was on the extreme after end of the boat deck.
I grabbed the flimsy. ‘Position?’
Sparks shrugged, looking apologetic. ‘He didn’t have time to finish. I managed to get a D.F. fix though. It was bloody loud. Couldn’t have been all that far away.’
I glanced at the neatly pencilled letters, SSSS: MV KENT STAR TO ALL SHIPS… TORPEDOED IN ENGINE SPACE WE ARE GOING POSIT… My mouth set tight as I imagined that poor bastard operator clinging grimly to his key as he felt the ship laying over with him still aboard. They could hardly have had time to realise what had hit them though, not with a garbled distress call like this as their only legacy.
‘Is that all you got, Alf?’
He nodded and I caught a trace of whisky in his breath. ‘That’s all, Mate. Poor buggers must’ve gone down like a block of lead.’
I started to walk towards the chartroom. ‘Nearly blew my earphones off,’ Foley said behind me. ‘Couldn’t have been more than forty miles away, not at that strength. D.F. bearing 358 degrees.’
I stopped abruptly and stared at him, dead shattered. ‘You did say 358, Alf?’
Then the Captain stumped up the ladder, fully dressed this time, and looked at the signal. I think the florid features went paler under the tan, but otherwise he didn’t even blink. ‘You didn’t manage to get her position then, Mister Foley?’
‘No, Sir,’ Alf answered uncomfortably, and I felt sorry for him and the inadequate way he waved his hands.
‘Mister Foley got a fix though, Sir,’ I said quickly. ‘Bearing 358, range approximately forty miles.’
Evans looked up sharply. ‘My God!’ he said.
Brannigan picked up the Aldis, ‘Escort’s signalling, Sir.’
The Old Man didn’t glance at him. He just murmured, ‘I don’t want to know when she’s signalling, Mister Brannigan. I’m only interested in what she has to say.’
‘Aye, aye, Sir,’ the Fourth Mate muttered, pulling a face at old Foley as he turned away towards the flickering blip on the corvette’s bridge. Evans held the signal sheet up to me.
‘Seems you were right about our cutting it too fine, John,’ he conceded slowly.
I nodded, but didn’t feel very pleased with my vindication. Radio direction finder bearings are obtained relative to the ship’s head only, which meant that Foley’s bearing on the sinking Kent Star was only two degrees to the left of our present course. At seventeen knots we would be within spitting distance of the sub which sank her within two hours. Unless we altered course again.
‘Cut in towards the coast, do you think, Sir?’ I said.
The Old Man looked dubious. ‘That would take us near to the regular shipping lane, John. We’ve already altered to avoid two U-boats suspected to the east and, with the Kent Star U-boat, which could even have been one of them, already fine on our port bow, I can only see Braid going farther west.’
Farther west! Which meant an even greater deviation from our refuelling berth at Cape Town. The Chief was going to have ulcers on his slide rule before this trip was over and I sympathised with him. The South Atlantic suddenly seemed a very large ocean. Behind me I heard the Aldis rattle a smart acknowledgement, then Brannigan appeared at the Old Man’s elbow and handed him the scrawled message. Obviously the corvette’s operators had caught the ‘S’ call too. Evans held out the signal for me to read.
COMESCORT TO MASTER CYCLOPS: REPEAT TO MASTER ATHENIAN… DISTRESS CALL RECEIVED MV KENT STAR SUGGESTS FURTHER ENEMY ACTIVITY AHEAD… COURSE ALTERATION STARBOARD FIVE DEG TO 153 DEG TRUE REPEAT 153 DEG ON MY EXECUTE SIGNED BRAID END.
‘Execute from Mallard, Sir,’ the Fourth Mate called. Obviously our Comescort wasn’t wasting any time. I wondered if it had occurred to the dashing Commander Braid that there might be men coughing their lives out in the water less than two hours away, but it was unfair of me. Compassion doesn’t have any place in wartime, not when it conflicts with ‘Duty.’ It provided bloody good ammunition for unreasoning cynics like me, though.
I turned wearily into the wheelhouse. ‘Starboard five degrees. Steady on 153.’
As our head swung even further into the wastes of the burning South Atlantic I looked at the distress signal still clutched in my hand. Something about it worried me. Something indefinable, but nevertheless there. I read it again more carefully: SSSS: MV KENT STAR TO ALL SHIPS: TORPEDOED IN ENGINE SPACE WE ARE GOING POSIT… Then the final break as her H.T. aerials shorted out into the rushy greedy sea. M.V. Kent Star. I chewed my lip nervously and tried to think. Kent Star? Maybe it was just word association. Chief Officer John Kent? Motor vessel Kent? I tried to shrug the suspicious feeling off. We had a small problem of our own to worry about — like just staying alive.
But Kent? The Kent Star?
Poor Alf Foley disappeared less than two hours later.
It was about ten p.m. and I was relaxing under a large gin in the Chief’s cabin when it happened. Well, when I say relaxing I really mean I was getting on the outside of a welcome tot of Gilbey’s best in between spells of watching an angry Scots ship’s engineer pounding the hell out of the already battered, leather-bound Company Fuel Log lying cowering on his jumbled desk.